Wavetastic

Right now, 100,000 Google Wave invites are winging their way across the Internet. This means that around 100,000 wide-eyed enthusiasts are about to log in, have a few conversations and quickly proclaim: “Google Wave sucks!”

And it’s true – in many ways it does. Yes, Google Wave offers real-time chat, embedding gadgets, threaded conversations and private discussions. With this I do not argue. My gripe lies with the Google Wave client. I am very worried that Google’s buggy interface, loaded with showcase features, will disillusion a whole swathe of technology pioneers.

This would be a massive shame, as the underlying Wave technology offers a great step forward for online communication. Wave has potential to supersede our decades-old emailing systems, which offer no threading, no interactive content, no standards-compliant presentation system, and an excruciatingly limited support for binary data. Wave gives us a technology designed for today’s web. RIP email.

However, the majority of web-goers are not going realise these benefits for some time. I mean this quite literally.

We, as app developers, will be able to benefit from Wave almost immediately. We can now build apps with entire communication systems based upon Wave. Are you building a photo-sharing app? Well, each photo’s comments can be a Wave. Are you creating a social media app? Then each conversation can be a Wave. Once the Wave client libraries appear (soon), this will be just one less thing for developers to worry about.

The real prize for everyday users will come when we have two things:

1. Some good Wave clients
2. The first apps with Wave-based discussion

Then, we get to the cool part: you can now fire up your Wave client (a beautifully sculpted Mac app, perhaps). From there you can access, and participate in, every conversation you have been part of, from photo comments to that client brief you were waiting for.

Now your everyday, run-of-the-mill, users begin to realise the usefulness of Wave. No longer will they inevitably lose track of their dispersed conversations, as everything can be handled from a single, unified interface.

This is when Wave will start to eat away at email. Getting people to actually use Wave means the battle is almost won, and the path is paved for using Wave to communicate directly with friends, family and colleagues.

Now, developers, listen up. It is you that will make this happen, so think about building Wave support into your next app, or even start work on a killer Wave client. You may even make some cash in the process.